Gentile Teachings

God chose Abram.  He chose Isaac instead of his brother.  He chose Jacob instead of Esau; he hated Esau.

God changed Jacob's name to Israel.  He demonstrated his power by delivering the descendants of Israel from the Egyptians.

God made his expectations known through Moses.  He destroyed nations and made the name of Israel feared.

When the people of Israel rebelled against him, he punished them.  He killed many, but always kept a remnant of faithful Israelites.

Jesus is the King of Israel.

God sent Jesus to save the Israelites from their sins.

Jesus told the Canaanite woman he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Except for that woman and the Roman Centurion, Jesus exclusively interacted with Israelites.

Israelites wrote all of the works of the Bible.  Paul said they were entrusted with the words of God.

Of the twelve apostles, only Paul was sent to the Gentiles.  He told Gentiles how to become Israelites.

Gentiles took Paul's works and used them to assemble the Bible.  Then they created the Gentile Church, ... and scorned the name of Israel.

The name of God's people is Israel.  He disciplines his people, and many are unfaithful.  But God is always faithful.

Satan is a liar.  He sets up counterfeits.

Many people desire to do what is right and follow God.  They want to believe in Jesus and belong to him.  But many have fallen for counterfeits.

Every Gentile church is a counterfeit.  Each one looks right, but there is something wrong in every single one of them.  That is because they are not Israel.

The name of Israel has God's blessing, and those who are a part of it receive the nourishing sap.  The words and ideas in the Bible are products of that sap, so they are holy.  They have power and authority.

Gentile teachings are not products of the nourishing sap.  They contain lies and half-truths.  They are spiritual dead ends.

What attracts flies?  Death?

Gentile churches and their various manifestations are under constant harassment from the spiritual forces of evil.  They are infiltrated, deceived, and worn down.  It's like a swarm of flies.

Those who are in Israel are alive.  They do not attract flies.

The flies don't even notice they are there.

All glory to God.

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NOTES:

1. Exactly 33 years ago this morning, I got to meet my babies, ... and then I had to say goodbye.  I believe my wife is with them now.
   
2. Exactly 13 years later, I gave notice to my employer that I was leaving my career to 'follow the Lord.'
3. Today, exactly 20 years after that, I am posting what I believe to be the key message I have been called to proclaim.
4. I do not believe in coincidences.  This was not planned by me.

UPDATE, November 21, 2023...

Yehoshua confronted the scribes and Pharisees, the 'religious professionals' of the time, because they were misleading the people.  We must do the same today.

I have learned to spot certain tells as I evaluate whether specific voices are worth listening to.  Here are a couple of them:

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority..."  (Acts 1:6-7 NIV)

Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.  (Ephesians 6:19-20 NIV)

These statements are almost always skipped and ignored.  Similar to the seeds sown on the hardened path, these are seeds not even cast.  This should make us question the 'sower,' and whether they can be trusted about anything they say.

My INTJ personality has learned to be very efficient at evaluating these things.  Impersonal analysis may be foreign to some people, but someone has to do it or people will be led astray.  This is a big part of my job.

People should simply read the Bible.  Derivative works such as commentaries and workbooks can be helpful, but we must remember that they are works of men, and they can mislead us.

Also, I have observed many people hang on the words of certain pastors, theologians, and famous teachers.  My question is, are we following them or are we following Yehoshua?

Just like the name "Jesus" is a distortion of a transliteration of a transliteration, the messages from Gentile preachers are almost always faulty in some way.

Shutdown

Chemical plants and refineries operate continuously for many months and even years, but eventually they must be shut down for maintenance.  When they are, they are very different places.

Instead of the loud roar of compressors and high pitched whine of pumps, there is relative silence.  The clanging of tools, crackling of welding arcs, and humming of diesel generators fill the air, but it is nothing like the sound of the operating plant.  Lots of things have to happen in a short amount of time, because "time is money."  The system must be emptied out, cleaned out, inspected, repaired, and modified where necessary.  Safety equipment must be checked and refurbished, and known weak points must be replaced with new parts.  Then everything must be buttoned back up and safely refilled with hazardous materials so it can all be restarted.  This typically all takes a number of weeks to accomplish, and requires a lot of planning and preparation.

You can always tell where there is a shutdown happening.  Cranes.

Our bodies apparently need occasional "shutdowns," too.  They are designed for it, but we rarely, if ever, carry them out.  They are called "fasts," and they are a foreign concept to our modern, western culture.

Fasting is not something I ever really considered doing for any lengthy period, but I did write about it as part of a previous post in 2016.  I concluded...

I believe fasting is appropriate when we are specifically called to do so by the Holy Spirit, or we have lost contact with Him, but most of the behaviors promoted by this particular book are not relevant under the New Covenant.

I still agree with that assessment, and the analysis I did in that post.

As I previously discussed, I lost my wife in January, and since then it has basically been just the Holy Spirit and me.  My wife and I had been doing some intermittent fasting, eating about twice a day.  In recent weeks I had decreased that to eating one big meal a day.  I had also started growing out my beard, simply to see what it did.  Eventually things got to the point where the refrigerator was pretty empty, I had used up anything that needed to be used, and I really had no motivation to go to the grocery store.  This was not out of laziness, however.  It was like I was being blocked.

So, I decided to start fasting, to see what it was like.  It was easy because I just did not eat that meal the next day.  Or the next.  Or the next.  The "detox" headaches came first, but I've had those before.  Then I had a couple of days where I had a sore throat.  Then one ear started popping, and a few days later some wax came out.  Lots of interesting things happened, but it all made sense.

I'm not going to go into details, and I am definitely not giving anybody any advice.  I will leave that to those who think it is their job to do.  I am also not going to get into the length of the fast because this is not about boasting.  I just want to convey some of the things that I learned.

...when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  (Matthew 6:17-18 NIV)

This fast did not start out being "spiritual," but once I was into it I realized it actually was.  My beard was long enough that it masked any gaunt appearance of my face.  Some of my clothing was already baggy, especially my work clothes, and it was really not obvious to anybody what I was doing.  The Holy Spirit had arranged this, but I was still doing it for "health reasons."

Autophagy is the body's mechanism for removing damaged and old cells.  It roughly means "self-devouring."  Being the engineer that I am, I wanted to see how it worked.

The bottom line was, my body found peace.  It was almost like it was saying to me, "Thank you.  Thank you for giving me a break!"  I continued to take my daily walks, mowed the grass, worked in the garden, talked with the neighbors, and walked downtown to see a couple of concerts.  And nobody was the wiser.  At least for a while.

I started keeping track of my weight after I was well into it, because I'm an engineer and I wanted to make sure I understood what was going on.  Staying hydrated was important, and I continued with my use of sea salt to maintain electrolytes.  I got very tired of drinking water.

Later on, I did slow down a lot, and I got weaker.  I started thinking a lot about food, and my stomach would periodically try to remind me that it was boss, but it was not.  This is where the "spiritual" learning started to kick in.  I found myself ignoring my flesh and easily found myself passing much time in spiritual thoughts.  These are things I did not anticipate.

More than midway through the fast I needed to fix my mother breakfast in order to get her to an early appointment where she had to be alert, and I made her fried eggs and toast.  It was not a problem at all.  The next day, I took her grocery shopping, and that wasn't a problem either.  It was amazing.

Not knowing how it would end, I decided if someone wanted to arrange a meal, or some event, I would call it quits.  Soon after, my mother asked me a number of times to take her out to get something to eat, and she also started to quiz me about what I was doing.  I explained it to her and told her it was time to be done.  I had started making unforced errors and my primary responsibility was taking care of her.¹ 

God desires mercy, not sacrifice.  As I discussed in that other related post, spending time fasting does not show anyone any mercy.  Asceticism doesn't do anyone any good; it's showboating.  It was time to go eat with my mother, although I told her I needed to take things slowly.

Recommissioning

I picked the time to end my fast, and I recommenced by starting with chicken broth.  Then I moved to a couple of eggs.  Then, I had a small spoon of raw honey.  I had been craving a peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwich, which is something I ate as a child, but I had to settle for Mayonaise.  Then I wanted some of the Gatorade I had bought for my mother because she had been dehydrated, and she gladly gave it to me because she doesn't like the stuff.  I asked her for a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich, which is something our family always ate, and she gladly gave me one.  (I wanted her to remember that I had ended my fast.)  Then I went home and had part of a pastie.  You get the idea.

I took it slowly, but it was amazing how quickly my body realized the "famine" was over.  I've been craving a lot of bread, which is something I typically do not eat, but apparently that's what my body wants.  It doesn't surprise me that Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread.  I can sense that these foods are necessary to recharge my glucose stores in my muscles.²  I'm resting a lot.

This is my second day out of my fast, and I went to the grocery store today.  I was at such peace.  There are some recipes I intend to do, but my primary focus was on getting bread for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and yogurt to repopulate my... you know.  My body is amazing, and it is guiding me about what to do.

God's design is so incredible.  All glory to him!

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UPDATES, April 3, 2022...

¹Relocated and clarified this sentence.

²The book Body By Science by Doug McGuff has been very useful to me.  It promotes a very sensible method for building muscle mass and includes the scientific background behind it.  You can view a free Internet archive of the book here.

UPDATE, November 6, 2022...

According to these articles in The Epoch Times, fasting and autophagy are natural methods for detoxing from COVID infection and vaccination.  So is exposure to sunlight.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/natural-ways-to-increase-autophagy-and-detox-spike-proteins-after-covid-infection-vaccination_4827913.html

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/signs-you-have-a-spike-protein-blood-clot-and-what-to-do-about-it_4842975.html

UPDATE, August 11, 2023...

Now that I have reclaimed my birthright political status as a Michiganian, I can actually speak freely.  My unalienable rights are intact and protected by the Bill of Rights of the Constitutions.

U.S. Citizens and citizens of the United States are welcome to listen to my opinions and take my advice at their own risk.  We all must learn to self-govern and take responsibility for ourselves.

It has been over two years since my fast, and I feel great.  I go to sleep when it gets dark (although not always to bed right away 😂), and wake up when it starts to get light.  I am naturally eating less and eating when I get hungry.  I have also relaxed some of my dietary practices and moved away from supplements.  I get my nutrition through eating food, as God intends.

Out of curiosity, I weighed myself this morning, the first time since ending my fast.  I have regained 29 pounds and believe I am at my ideal weight.  My "love handles" are gone.  My Sweetie would be proud of me, and maybe even a bit amorous.  Wouldn't that be nice? 💞

In the year or so after my fast, I did strength training five times.  I would like to get back to the gym at some point, but it has not really been important in the big scheme of things.

I am convinced that fasting is an essential part of life and its effects are long-lasting.  Eating the way God intends and getting appropriate amounts of sunlight are also key.  When we do things God's way, we will be rewarded.

Debt

Memorial Presbyterian Church, Midland, MI¹

It always happens.  Some people decide they don't like what's going on in the church group they are a part of and they leave it to form their own group.  They start out in somebody's home, a motel room, or rent space in a strip-mall, and hold their weekly, one-hour celebrations the way they want.

If things go well, and they attract other participants, someone invariably finds an unused church building and the group scrounges up enough collateral to obtain a loan to buy it.  They go into debt.

Some financially well-off church organizations give credit to God "for what he is doing," and form a committee to explore building a new facility, which will add to the overall supply of single-purpose religious buildings.  They establish a building fund and operate a campaign to encourage their congregants to give generously to "what God is doing."  Then they work with a church construction management business to obtain a loan and execute construction of the brand new facility.  They go into debt.

Of course there will be some people who disagree with all of that, so they will leave, but advertising campaigns and "seeker friendly" programs and sermons attract many others who gladly join in on the excitement and contribute to the cause.  But after the new building has been open for a while, the smell of the new carpet has faded, and the novelty has worn off, the pastoral staff will find itself facing dwindling numbers and tighter budgets, as the debt becomes a larger and larger percentage of the total operating costs.

In all cases, it becomes a business.  Keeping people coming back and writing checks becomes the primary concern.  If the loan goes into default, the bank will take over and sell the property to the next group of motel-worshipers who want a place to call their own.

I know people mean well and intentions are usually good, but none of this is biblical, and none of it has anything to do with following Jesus.  It's about money; its about getting people into debt.  Who is behind all of this?  That should be obvious.  Who is behind everything the Darkness does?

It was a building program that taught me what was going on when we were members of a church.  Most people did not see it, but at the time it disgusted me.  Now it just makes me sad.  It's just another trap the Darkness uses in its exploits to steal and kill and destroy.

In most cases, debt concerning money is linked to sin.  In my opinion, if a group needs to go into debt for "what God is doing," that's a pretty good indication God isn't actually doing anything.  It sounds more like impatience and presumption to me.

When the Israelites came out of Egypt, God arranged for them to plunder the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22; 12:36), and they used that wealth to build the Tabernacle and its furnishings in the Wilderness.  God provided ahead of time for what he was really doing, and it all made sense in hindsight.  That's how God works.

This problem with the church is really only a small part of a much bigger problem.  Paper money is not real money, nor are numbers on a piece of paper or in a computer.  Those things have no inherent value and can be made worthless by simply adding to their supply.  Paper is nothing more than an I.O.U.  It's a promise to pay, but the promise is always broken, by design.  It's a lie.  Our entire financial system is based on semantic deceit and hidden debt.  It's fraud.  Massive fraud.  The system only holds together because people are so distracted by their busy schedules and the pleasures of life that they accept and believe the lies.

Who is the father of lies?

Every time we get paid in paper scrip and use that scrip to supposedly pay our bills, we go deeper into debt. And the people behind the scheme are on the credit side of the ledger².  They are the ones accumulating the real wealth from the fruits of our labor.  It's not gold and silver they are after.  They buy up real estate and other forms of equity that can be used to produce even more wealth, and ultimately control the world -- literally.  At this point, they own just about everything.  Well, they think they do.  As the saying goes, you can't take it with you when you die.  But they have invented corporations and trusts to maintain control in perpetuity, provided they can keep the masses from figuring out what is going on.  They know if that ever happens, they will be crushed.

...Which is the real reason why there has been so much hatred towards a particular recent President of the United States.

All glory to God.

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¹I have absolutely no knowledge about the affairs of this particular church, and make no judgments about them.  I am using this photo I took of it because it is a magnificent building in the center of the city where I live.

UPDATE, October 16, 2021...

²As I continue to study these things, I have learned it is exactly the opposite.  Those who create the I.O.U.'s (scrip/fiat "money") are the ones going into debt.  Since we only receive I.O.U's, we are not actually being paid for our efforts and are accumulating vast amounts of credit that we never see, know about, or get to enjoy.  The widely publicized multi-trillion-dollar "National Debt" is actually balanced by an equal "National Credit" that is never mentioned.  As I remember from my college accounting class, credits and debts³ always sum to zero, by definition.  Unless there is chicanery going on...

UPDATE, June 18, 2022...

³A debit is an accounting term that is opposite of a credit.

Webster's New World Dictionary, 1964: "debit ...  adj. relating to debt or debts.  v.t. 1. to charge with a debt."

Black's Law Dictionary, 11th edition, 2019: "debit ... 3. An account balance showing that something remains due to the holder of the account."

That Black's definition sounds like a debt to me.  Seems evasive, like the editor doesn't want people to connect the terms credit and debt, especially when read in context with the other definitions of those two words in that dictionary.

UPDATE, November 17, 2022...

St. John's Lutheran Church, Midland, MI⁴

Why would a church incorporate?  Why is "non-profit" status necessary?  I have heard it is so people can "deduct" the amounts of donations from income tax paperwork.  As far as I know, things have always been done that way.  My dad did it and I did it.

But I do not have any federal income, so why am I paying federal income taxes?

If I do not owe any federal income taxes, then I don't need to fill out the paperwork and do not need to be concerned about deductions.  Any donations I make should be private and my own business.

By incorporating, an organization moves from the Land/Soil Jurisdiction onto the Jurisdiction of the Sea.  Instead of being able to operate under American Common Law, they must operate under various forms of foreign, civil law that are very complicated and disadvantageous.  Why would they do that when they don't have to?  Why make it a commercial business?

Corporations are ships without the physical ship.  They are governed by Maritime Law.  Employees of corporations are governed by Admiralty Law, and are literally slaves of the "captain" of the "ship," who is the chief executive officer (CEO).  Why would a church want to operate like that?  Is that how Jesus did things?  No.

The Bible describes Jesus' church as a Body and a Bride.  It uses male terms to describe the Godhead:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which Jesus calls "he."  The Church, or Assembly, is described in female terms.  There will be a Wedding, and we are the Bride.

If a woman goes into business and sells herself for money, what do we call that?

I believe those who love Jesus have gotten way off track and are doing unnecessary things for wrong reasons.  I believe we need to rethink what we are doing.

We need to repent.

⁴I do not know anything about the affairs of this church either.  It is another photo I took of a church building.

Root Cause

Root cause analysis is an important tool for finding out what went wrong.  If you don't pull up the whole root, the problem will just come back.  Process safety managers and engineers use various methods to do root cause analyses.

One of the simplest methods of root cause analysis is known as the "Five Whys."  The person conducting the analysis simply starts by asking why things happened at least five times.  I am going to use that method to examine the possible root cause(s) of my wife's recent death.

(1) Why did my wife die?  Her death certificate states she died from bleeding as a result of the intervention the medical professionals did on her.  (I am not going to go into specifics.)

(2) Why were they doing an intervention?  Her death certificate states she had an acute circulatory catastrophe, which caused her to pass out at the grocery store.

(3) Why did that catastrophic event occur?  Her death certificate states she had a deformity in her circulatory system.  I believe this is a presumption because there was no testing or imaging done prior to the event, although I am sure the surgeon could tell what had gone on.

This is as far as the death certificate goes and I did not want them to do an autopsy.

Continuing with the "whys"...

(4) Why was there a deformity or weakness in her circulatory system?  Only God knows, but she had chronic inflammation for a long time.  That was diagnosed by an immunologist.  Had the medical professionals looked into her records, they would have known that.

(5) Why did she have inflammation?  This is the key question, in my opinion, and one the medical community never pursued.  They harped about cholesterol and blood pressure, although her numbers were not bad.  Those are symptoms of inflammation, but they have been labelled as discrete medical conditions:  hyperlipidemia and hypertension.  Through our own research we learned that the official advice for addressing those issues only leads to worsening of those "conditions," so we found our own paths to improving our health, often by going in exactly the opposite direction.  For example, we did the Whole 30 diet for a month.  It made big improvements in our health and allowed us to learn what foods were, and were not, causing problems for each of us.

But despite all of our efforts, her inflammation remained and I couldn't figure out why.

Then, two months after she died, I learned she was deficient in vitamin D.  I did an entire post on that and I encourage you to read it here.  That realization explained everything.

(6) Why was she deficient in vitamin D?  Because she never went in the sun.

(7) Why did she not go in the sun?  Because she followed the advice she was given by those she trusted.  For example, this photo was recently shared on Facebook by my Michigan state senator.

(8) Why do people parrot that advice?  Because they believe those who seem to be in authority.

(9) Why would the authorities give bad advice?  That's a very important question, and one people need to pursue on their own.  That's because they wouldn't believe it if they were told.

When we understand the "big picture," everything makes sense.

All glory to God.

 

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UPDATE, September 3, 2022...

A friend of mine just completed some work in another country to help girls prepare for life and not be vulnerable to potential abuse.  It seemed to be very successful and fun, and addressed some important issues.

I know absolutely nothing about the culture of that country, and am pleased things are being done to make people's lives better.  That is what God wants.  When we see an opportunity to do good, we are called to do it.

As an engineer, I immediately analyze things and try to fix problems.  I look forward to debriefing my friend when they are back to see if there are ways I can help.  I think some root-cause analysis of the situation would be fascinating to do, and am looking forward to perhaps giving it a try.  It's what I do.

This is so much fun!!